Cruising in the Caribbean

Dave’s grandfather John loves cruise vacations. He has been on something like 30 cruises with his wife. They couldn’t cruise at the end, her Alzheimer’s made traveling challenging and unsafe. Since her death, we’ve gone on two cruises with him. The first was especially hard for him, as all the memories of their time together came flooding back. This one was easier, though we had some medical mishaps (I sliced open my foot on the first night, he caught a stomach bug).

We enjoyed our trip on Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas. It was the same cruise line and the same ship as our previous trip, and so we re-encountered some of the folks that helped make our trip special the first time, especially Mihai from Romania who recognized and immediately fussed over John in Romanian (John speaks Romanian).

Things I liked:

enforced indolence. On a day at sea, after an hour or so at the gym, there really is nothing to do except relax, read, talk, eat, etc. Even the stopovers were relaxed (see photo below from our day on CocoCay in the Bahamas).

the international staff. Fun to meet folks from Goa, from Romania, from the Phillipines….

the amazing cheery helpfulness. They must have some fascinating hiring criteria. We met nothing but patient, sunny folks who sincerely seemed to enjoy taking great care of us.